The present invention relates to pallet racking arrangements and more particularly, relates to a method system for reinforcing pallet racks.
Pallet racks originally received wide usage in warehouses wherein typically they would extend in a plurality of rows for substantially the height of the building with space being provided between the rows for forklift trucks to move. The forklift trucks would then remove stock from the shelves for the shipping of quantities thereon or for further processing.
More recently, the opening of large warehouse stores to the public have utilized such pallet racks for direct access by the consumer. In this arrangement, the warehouse and retail functions are combined.
Inherently, there are dangers in such a system and safeguards against collapse must be provided. To date, most of the safety concerns have centered around the various design criteria to ensure that the pallet racks are capable of accepting the loads to which they are subjected. Normally, the pallet racks are of a knock down design wherein the shelves or beams are hooked onto a post. The posts are generally perforated to receive the hook elements and various designs of the post have been proposed in the art. One may, for example, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,996 illustrating such a post structure.
While the use of pallet racks achieves substantial economies for the user, they are very susceptible to damage. Inherently, the loaded pallets must be lifted onto the racks by fork lift trucks. Due to the sometimes limited spaces, accidents are quite frequent wherein the fork lift truck will accidentally collide with one of the support posts. With the very high loads which the pallet racks carry, this is a dangerous situation and any post even slightly damaged must be replaced.
In order to replace the damaged post, the loaded pallets must be removed from the structure and the rack disassembled. After repair, the pallets must then be reloaded on the structure.
The above process is both an expensive and time consuming one. Frequently, once the post has been damaged, the forces acting on the structure will then cause damage to some of the bracing and beams. For safety reasons, it frequently becomes necessary to replace a substantial portion of the structure.
Although it has been proposed in the art to provide post protectorsxe2x80x94see U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,110, such post protectors do not assist in preventing damage to the post at a height above the protector.
It is also known to provide a repair system for pallet racks such as shown in Canadian Patent 2,232,178. The present invention provides an improvement to such a repair system and may be installed at the time of installation of the pallet racks.
According to the present invention, there is provided a reinforcement unit which may be utilized with any known type of pallet rack system and a method for improving pallet rack systems.
In greater detail, the reinforcement unit of the present invention is designed to work with all standard pallet racks. In this respect, it will be understood that different pallet racks will have different dimensions and the reinforcement unit will be configured accordingly.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a reinforcement unit for pallet racks comprising a first tubular post having an upper end and a lower end, a first floor bearing plate secured to the first tubular post at the lower end thereof, a first horizontal support plate secured to the first tubular post at the upper end thereof, a first connecting member secured to the upper end of the first tubular post, the first connecting member having a portion thereof secured to the first tubular post and a further portion extending upwardly above the first support plate, a second tubular post having an upper end and a lower end, a second floor bearing plate secured to the second tubular post at the lower end thereof, a second horizontal support plate secured to the second tubular post at the upper end thereof, a second connecting member secured to the upper end of the second tubular post, the second connecting member having a portion thereof secured to the second tubular post and a further portion extending upwardly above the second support plate and a horizontal frame member extending between the first tubular post and the second tubular post.
The reinforcement unit of the present invention is designed to be sufficiently sturdy to withstand any damage from lift trucks and the like. Accordingly, it is constructed of sufficiently robust material and in preferred embodiments, the post and braces are made of steel between xc2xc and {fraction (3/16)} inch thick. The same material will be used for the connecting members.